Earlier in the summer I said we'd update you with BBC Tees' plans for Darlington coverage for this forthcoming season.

As promised, we'll continue to provide coverage of matches home and away, league and cup which though I say it myself, is miles ahead of anyone else who might claim to cover the club. I hope you'll agree that our recent live programme from the Arena v Sunderland, phone-in with Mark Cooper and all-round comprehensive coverage of the club proves we are committed as ever, despite last season's relegation.

So this season you'll be able to receive full, uninterrupted commentary of each match through our website http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees with Ray Simpson. In addition, you will still be able to hear scores updates along with half-time and full-time reports on 95FM and DAB digital radio (on DAB we will have additional reports).

On Saturdays (on all frequencies) we will still have the team news from 2pm, the post-match interview with Mark Cooper after 6pm and if you miss that, the interview will be on the BBC Tees website a few hours after full-time. You'll also be able to hear coverage of the team through the week on BBC Tees Sport, 6-8pm.

On occasions when Darlington are the only local team playing, then we will continue to put the commentary on all frequencies.

We feel this means Darlington commentary will be available to as many listeners as possible as we are allowed to broadcast Conference Premier matches on our website (unlike Football League matches).

As ever, we'd always welcome your feedback and feel free to get in touch - our email address is tees.sport@bbc.co.uk.

On a slightly separate note, I must admit to being very impressed so far with Mark Cooper and his assistant Richard Dryden. Both seem very knowledgeable footballing individuals and good people so lets hope this is a season remembered for the right reasons.

All the best,

James Mountford
BBC Tees Sport

Excellent stuff

Nice one,thanks pal

Yes that is great.

However, last season all teams on the PTV official websites, and I mean ALL teams - apart from Darlington - had commentary available through their official websites PROVIDED BY THEIR LOCAL BBC RADIO STATION. This was at a cost of £35 and I basically paid that last season for you to fail me. I want my money back and PTV say the absent commentary is your fault not theirs.

Please don't fob me off with s*** like you have done in the past, eg "no they don't all provide commentary" because they do. Know your facts before trying to fob me off again - every team on the PTV network has commentary provided by their local BBC radio station, that is what the subscriber pays for.

I paid, where was my product?

I got my money back - just before the end of the season. Wrote to PTV advising that I considered that their failure to provide match commentary for every match as advertised on 'Quakers World' was a breach of contract. Money in bank account a week later.

Thanks for telling the rest of us at the time!

I know! I just cancelled the subscription and swallowed the loss.

If I remember correctly they phoned me up to offer a month or two free, but the point was that the service was useless to me free or otherwise.

See: http://www.darlofc.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4880

this season you\'ll be able to receive full, uninterrupted commentary of each match @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/tees

http://www.darlofc.co.uk/news.php?NewsID=314

Does that mean I will be able to listen in the colonies ?

Will the people who dont live in BBC Tees catchment be able to listen in? Isnt there a syndication issue with listening to sports on local stations, outside of the stations area? Or have I gone insane and made this up?

Quakerz, have you complained through the proper channels? ie. A formal letter of complaint to Tees or the PTV company? You'll likely have more success than ranting on an internet message board. I was in a similar situation with an internet radio company when I worked abroad, promised to have English football commentary, but barely ever worked.

This should be available worldwide - or at least in countries where the BBC isn't banned. I suggest bookmarking the website early.

I intend to set up a proxy feed for genuine fans who experience technical issues.

Regarding Q world - whilst the commentary last season was a flop you still get access to a lot of video archive and you can use the player thing to listen in to any game/any team on the system. So even though we don't get the best coverage it's still useful.

Probably not unless you go through a UK proxy. My experience of trying to use BBC/Sky over the internet whilst overseas is that you need a UK IP address.

If wylam can get a reliable proxy sorted it will be of great benefit to those overseas.

What was the email/postal address you sent this letter to? I've asked for a refund and was totally ignored. I'm still a paying customer as well.

Regarding the video content Wylam - is there a way of getting anything before this season? It looks like you can't get it anymore from when the stupid tossers changed it to 'Quakers Player'. One of the few redeeming things of the total sh!tpile service was being able to view highlights going back a few seasons but I can't see how you get it now?

All very well, but you never told us it got you a result a week later!

Apologies for not following up on the result - it was remiss of me (I thought I had posted an update but hadn't - sorry!)

The e mail address I used was: customerservices@performgroup.com

Interestingly, in my communications with performgroup, they put the blame for lack of commentary directly on Radio Tees for failing to provide them with a match commentary.

Performgroup said that the Radio Tees/Darlington situation was unique in that Radio Tees was the only local BBC broadcaster in England that had refused to provide them with a match commentary.

This was confirmed with my discussions with Christine Balford and later Damon Shaw at DFC.

Perhaps James Mountford from Radio Tees would care to comment on this.

However, the contract to supply the match commentary as part of the 'Quakers Player' package was between perform group and me the customer. They had failed to provide this and consequently were in breach of contract.

I know this too.

Because I was informed the same.

I have repeatedly challenged Mountford every time he comes on here with his "Radio Tees, the only station that gives a fook about Darlo" posts - initially he fobbed me off and tried telling me that lots of stations won't provide commentaries for their local teams - this is blatantly not true. The facts bear out that they DO cover their local teams.

Radio Tees are only providing commentary now because they don't need the same license anymore and the costs are lower with us being non league. Now they can play the caring radio station role, but as soon as we are back in the league and the costs go up you can forget it.

They were basically too tight to fork out on the insignificant Darlo last year, unlike the other BBC stations who covered their local teams and provided full uninterrupted commentary of their clubs to PTV.

Yes it is appreciated that they are covering us NOW, but you can tune into any conference match on the iplayer. Shame it wasn't the case last season when you could listen to any league match on PTV apart from Darlo!

Indeed they were, and as they paid out to you (even if it was a couple of months ago), then they've set a precedent, admitted they were in breach, and should pay out to all Darlington subscribers.

I'll be sending them a very similar e-mail to yours tomorrow, and will of course be hoping for the same resolution.

Cheers.

Let us know how you get on Spyman.

I will. I'm like a dog with a bone when it comes to these sorts of things, so I will get a resolution.

Good luck!

If you would find it helpful, I still have a screen shot for the advertisement for Quakers Player advertising 'Every Match Live' - I attached this to my complaint to performgroup.

You're right that they now only seem to hold 1 season's worth of highlights. I had a look at a couple of other clubs and it seems to be the same there - although teams like Derby/Boro etc have much more other video content including after-match interviews.

Tell you what, why not just piss off the only local radio station who bothers to cover us in any way so that we get absolutely no coverage whatsover, that'll help. You might have a legitimate grouch over your money Q but there's no need to be so arsey.

I tend to agree. By all means be arsey and grouchy with Quaker's World after all that's who the contract is with - not BBC Tees.

BBC Tees aren't obliged to provide commentary to Quakers World - if Quakers World knew that they weren't able to provide 'Every Match Live' then they shouldn't be advertising the fact.

Hang on a minute, why would PTV advertise this service if they thought half of the radio stations would not provide commentary? They must have had agreements in place, Radio Tees being the one Radio station that stopped providing the commentary.

No, Radio Tees aren't obliged to spend my license fee on commentary for my team and I do understand that we are down the pecking order, and have on numerous occasions backed them up when Darlo fans have complained about their Boro coverage, HOWEVER last season they did the unthinkable, something that no other radio station covering a L2 team did, they pulled the internet coverage.

Now they're coming on with the "we'll provide internet commentary aren't we great?" line, fook off Tees you didn't care last season.

It all boils down to cost and nothing more.

That's bollocks to say they didn't care. The coverage on DAB was still there and was excellent. Do Tees need to spend money covering a club that has very little support ? No, but they do.

Did they provide live and uninterrupted commentary on DAB? I do not have a DAB so do not know.

They did not provide live and uninterrupted internet coverage for every match, like all the other radio stations.

Stop being a whiney girl and accept you support a tinpot club like the rest of us

Its a bit of a strange one, as the BBC didnt do any live coverage thru their site for any clubs, but they DO provide the feed to PTV evidently. I'd assume a slice of what PTV earns from subscribers is used to pay the BBC for coverage, but in Darlo's case a deal couldnt be struck for whatever reason.

Ray was doing full match commentaries on DAB so the feed was available, but for whatever reason PTV didnt pick this up for Darlo/weren't allowed by the BBC.

You'd have thought if no deal was in place between Tees & PTV that the commentary would have been made available via the BBC Tees internet site.

It is nothing to do with how tinpot our club is, it is principle. The principle being that all of the other tinpot clubs on the PTV network had commentary available to subscribe to, which was provided by their local radio - and Tees wouldn't provide commentary to PTV.